Review: THE CHRISTMAS THING, Seven Dials Playhouse

At the start of The Christmas Thing, the festive variety show from the two performers behind The Thing, every audience member is given a QR code to scan. This code takes you to a Google form with questions like “what’s your party trick?” and “do you prefer parsnips or sprouts?”, the answers to which, of course, will be used to generate audience participation.

This very much sets the tone for the show going forward. In a loving takedown of Golden Age Christmas specials performed by Bing Crosby et al, Tom Clarkson and Owen Visser invite a host of unsuspecting ‘special guests’ from the audience to walk out from backstage to ‘Step Into Christmas’ and generally make a fool of themselves. Things take a turn for the absurd when it’s revealed a goat-like demon is on the loose, attempting to steal the magic of Christmas after kidnapping Santa.

The Christmas Thing is a frenzied mix of crowd work, smart satire and unadulterated slapstick, which keeps up the unrelenting pace of a live TV special with frequent musical numbers and Zoom calls from their reluctant puppet co-host Steve (who’s travelled to Lapland to gain an interview with Santa, only to find him vanished).

Clarkson and Visser are at their best when they’re self-referential, offering up a dizzying selection of niche British pop culture references and song parody soundbites to the point of visual and sonic overstimulation. An early segment where the duo try to find inspiration for their show by scrolling through Netflix shows a particularly adept use of onscreen video technology as a character unto itself, and a keen understanding of various festive TV sub-genres.

When it isn’t December, Clarkson and Visser run a TV-inspired sketch comedy act called Mr. Thing. In their Christmas show, you sometimes get the sense that their previous show’s narrative has been awkwardly adapted for the festive season, and that the seasonal plot they’ve come up with is at odds with their desire to fit in every gag they could think of, whether Christmassy or not.

Some of the jokes on display here feel overdone elsewhere and a tonal mismatch for the premise, like the extensive Jamie Lloyd satire at the start of Act Two. Others are simply in poor taste, such as the decision to ‘race’ UberEats and Deliveroo riders for the entertainment of the audience – it’s an unfortunate legacy of TikTok comedy that it’s become commonplace to force people in gig economy jobs to become unwilling bit players in otherwise lacklustre sketches.

This is thus a two-hander of over two hours that could easily have been condensed to half that time, but Clarkson and Visser have more than enough energy and chemistry to keep up the momentum. Clarkson is convincing as a gregarious emcee, while Visser is the Richard Osman-esque man on the laptop, all long-suffering sighs and wry asides.

The Christmas Thing is a variety show with a little too much variety, and sometimes feels like a showcase for its talented performers (and perhaps a few game audience members) rather than a standalone show. Still, when it comes to quirky festive theatre that feels original and isn’t panto, you could do much worse.

The Christmas Thing plays at Seven Dials Playhouse until 20 December